US selected Iraq intelligence

LE

A former CIA official has accused the Bush administration of "cherry-picking" its intelligence on Iraq before the 2003 invasion.

"It has become clear that official intelligence analysis was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicised," Mr Pillar writes.

Not the first time this 'thought' has been floated, but the first time I've seen a (then) US intelligence insider going on record with the claims. For anybody who was even remotely involved in the lead up to the Iraq invasion, what he writes is/was blindingly obvious.

Awaiting semi-intelligable one-line rebuttals from neo_com, dogface et. al. pointing out that Mr Pillar is a (known) left-wing traitor and fully paid-up card-carrying member of the "ultra-left wing democrat" conspiracy.

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else."
Sir Winston Churchill

GCM

Interesting, since if he was the NIO for the Near East & SE Asia, he would, presumably, have been intimately involved with the cherry-picking.

NIOs are senior staff officers of the DNI (DCI then) for an assigned area of functional or geographic responsibility. NIOs manage the estimative process and interagency intelligence production on behalf of the DNI (DCI); are the principal point of contact between the DCI and intelligence consumers below the cabinet level; and are a primary source of national-level substantive guidance to intelligence community planners, collectors, and resource managers.

"If you ask me, this country could use a little less motivation. The people who are motivated are the ones causing all the trouble. Stock swindlers, serial killers, child molesters, Christian conservatives... these people are highly motivated." -George Carlin

"If some **** can **** something up, that **** will pick the worst possible time to ******* **** it up cause that ****'s a ****." -Malcolm Tucker

LE

Need to study the text properly in the morning: sober, with a bacon butty in hand. Too heavy for current thought process to get the detail. But, I think his arguement is that intelligence was reporting what they had, the politicians then filtered out the scraps that suited their purpose, and then avoided asking for a 'full report' that could, at some future date, prove 'awkward'.

LE

A former CIA official has accused the Bush administration of "cherry-picking" its intelligence on Iraq before the 2003 invasion.

"It has become clear that official intelligence analysis was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicised," Mr Pillar writes.

Not the first time this 'thought' has been floated, but the first time I've seen a (then) US intelligence insider going on record with the claims. For anybody who was even remotely involved in the lead up to the Iraq invasion, what he writes is/was blindingly obvious.

Awaiting semi-intelligable one-line rebuttals from neo_com, dogface et. al. pointing out that Mr Pillar is a (known) left-wing traitor and fully paid-up card-carrying member of the "ultra-left wing democrat" conspiracy.

It's more likely Mr Pillar is closer to Neo_con politically, but didn't have the guts to say anything at the time - the deaths of thousands of his own countrymen (which was as good as predicted) obviously wasn't high on his agenda in 2003. Also, has he got a book coming out soon?...